Leah Dizon - Destiny Line 12 September 2007
Leah Dizon is irrefutable proof that having a pretty face is ninety percent of what you need to succeed in the Japanese pop industry. The other ten percent consists of singing, dancing, and least of all, song-writing.Born and raised in Las Vegas, Dizon wanted to be a singer from a young age. To that end she attended schools for the performing arts. At the age of eighteen she moved to Los Angeles for college, majoring in film. However, she would drop out of school within a year. While in Los Angeles Dizon worked as a grid girl to support herself. Her sexy photo-shoots quickly began to appear on the Internet and suddenly Dizon found herself with an unexpected fan-base in Japan. A lot of people found an exotic beauty in her French-Filipino-Chinese ethnic heritage. When these new-found fans learned that Dizon wanted to be a singer they began pressuring her to send out demos. And so she did, sending a demo to multiple Japanese labels. Victor Entertainment signed her in 2006 and relocated her to Tokyo.Leah Dizon released a photo-book six months after moving to Japan, nearly five months before she would release any music. Dizon had all the characteristics of stereotypical gravure idol trying to be a pop star. Arguably she was already a star before ever recording a single song. Eleven months later Dizon had recorded and released her debut album, Destiny Line.Something strange happened though. The album was actually good.While it was hardly an earth-shattering album, Destiny Line was surprising for demonstrating Dizon’s talents as a song-writer. She created or collaborated on all but three tracks of her thirteen-track debut. Calendar pin-up babes turning into Japanese pop stars is a common phenomenon. However, it is rare to see one who works closely on writing her own music. This fact alone made the album more interesting than one by—I don’t know—someone like Nao Nagasawa. Her vocals and lyrical skills had room for improvement but that did not prevent Destiny Line from being a refreshingly interesting album considering the extremely stereotypical, superficial events that led to its creation.Leah Dizon has been an hiatus since releasing her second album in 2008, Communication!!! The three major reasons were her marriage, subsequent pregnancy, and subsequent divorce. Once one becomes a pop star it can be impossible to have a private life; the media thoroughly covered Leah Dizon’s marriage troubles and legal battle for custody of her daughter which she won. At this time of writing she is back in the United States but has expressed interest in returning to Japanese music. Now it’s just a waiting game to see if any record label want to sign Leah Dizon and begin what would be the second stage of her music career.Personally I don’t see it happening, but who knows. In any case, I hope as always that you enjoy the album!